Author Archives: Audrey Wells

She’s Everything and Everywhere: Riffs on Barbie and the Barbie Movie

Posted on 02/11/2024 by Audrey Wells

Barbie deserved her own biopic. More than one billion Barbie dolls have been shipped and sold around the world since her premier in 1959, and factories in Asia are still spewing her out. From her hair down to the pink … Continue reading →

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Filmmaker Raoul Peck: “Do We Wish for a Common History?”

Posted on 02/09/2022 by Audrey Wells

Pristine wilderness. Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? A place untouched. But does the phrase “pristine wilderness,” connoting unsullied land, serve as a cultural myth that ironically reeks of genocide? Raoul Peck makes this case and many others in … Continue reading →

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The Quiet Strength of Bamboo: Three Wonderful Films from the Pacific to Stream

Posted on 08/03/2021 by Audrey Wells

Add these three visually stunning and thoughtful films to your watch list. Each, to varying degrees, tells a story of indigenous culture from an insider’s point of view, and each offers the special pleasure of real people playing themselves in … Continue reading →

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“The Big Scary ‘S’ Word” is Coming for your Children

Posted on 12/06/2020 by Audrey Wells

  Did you know that Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx had a correspondence; that Helen Keller was a socialist, as was Francis Bellamy, who authored the Pledge of Allegiance; that North Dakota practices public banking; and that in the 1840s … Continue reading →

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What to Watch for Dinner Tonight: Trump Through the Looking Glass

Posted on 11/14/2018 by Audrey Wells

Who does Trump see when he looks in the mirror? Like many of us over the proverbial hill, he likely does not acknowledge his elderly self; he sees his younger self, glamorized through the pronounced image he cultivated over decades … Continue reading →

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Stream some Laughs: Four Political Comedies from Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico

Posted on 12/07/2017 by Audrey Wells

Subtitles don’t bite. Turn them on, if you need, and check out a superb satire from Mexican director Luis Estrada, The Perfect Dictatorship (La Dictadura Perfecta, 2014), streaming on Netflix. Prepare to laugh and squirm. In this uncomfortably relevant and … Continue reading →

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Hidden African American Films

Posted on 02/23/2017 by Audrey Wells

The popular film “Hidden Figures” tells a great story based on real figures, three important Black American women who work for NASA in key positions, as mathematicians and engineers, during the segregated 1960s. Contemporary audiences are celebrating this film that … Continue reading →

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Women’s Lib as Projected on the Screen

Posted on 12/27/2016 by Audrey Wells

“You need some vitamin F.” That’s the teasing advice Claudine gets from her women friends after she complains of not sleeping well. “Could you live without a man around the house?” Alice Hyatt and her neighbor Bea ponder this question. … Continue reading →

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Citizens Divided: the Presidential Campaign and Film

Posted on 04/25/2016 by Audrey Wells

Audrey Wells (Audrey Wells is a retired educator, freelance writer, and co-author of The Art of Theater: Playing Movies for 100 Years.) In an important film from the 2008 presidential race, Ann Coulter warns of Hillary Clinton: “She’s far more … Continue reading →

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Picture Yourself Watching a Painting Dry and Loving It

Posted on 01/28/2016 by Audrey Wells

Ready for a brain change? Try watching a languorous, lovely film. Skill is required. But like a meditation practice, it is worth the effort. Or travel the world through imagination and time. I suggest four vehicles below from South Korea, … Continue reading →

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When Phallic Symbols Shoot Literal Bullets: Murder at the Movies

Posted on 10/08/2015 by Audrey Wells

Imagine this headline: Study Finds Women Commit 98% of all Mass Shootings. The opposite is true, but if it were the case, what questions would we ask? If it were women gunning down children in schools, prayer groups in churches, … Continue reading →

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We Are Being Watched, So Let Us Watch Back

Posted on 07/08/2015 by Audrey Wells

I saw a dog riding a skateboard. Rather, I saw a video of a dog riding a skateboard. What’s the big difference? A few weeks ago I saw a mesmerizing movie, Monkey Kingdom, about Macaques in Sri Lanka. Shot as … Continue reading →

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People of the Screen

Posted on 03/01/2015 by Audrey Wells

As the day winds down, we no longer have to ask “What’s on tonight?” to keep ourselves entranced by moving pictures. We can download, dvr, stream, rent, borrow, or – don’t forget – go out to the movies. However, the … Continue reading →

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Audrey Wells piece

Posted on 11/14/2013 by Audrey Wells

Champaign-Urbana, a cultural outpost on the prairie, the Timbuktu of its day, treasures and protects its gems. The Art Theater is one of those gems. Without driving to Chicago or making one’s way to the cinema meccas of New York … Continue reading →

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